


Less Than Ideal

by Tenka



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:25:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenka/pseuds/Tenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the sound of screaming that wakes Johan up from a fitful sleep of half memories and twisted dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Less Than Ideal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HomuraBakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/gifts).



> Prompt: Johan meets Yubel officially some time after the conclusion of the series.

It’s the sound of screaming that wakes Johan up from a fitful sleep of half memories and twisted dreams. It’s accompanied by the cacophony of things being shoved off his kitchen table – Johan’s mind is particularly jolted to awareness when he hears glass and ceramic splinter and break – and he shoves off the covers and tries not to slip on the hardwood floor.

He reaches the kitchen and some shadowy but familiar figure greets him with a groan and a cough that splatters blood against the tabletop.

“Johan?” Judai coughs, and he moves – stumbles – briefly into the small patch of light that streams in through the window. He’s slow, swaying, and Johan properly registers golden eyes and far too much red.

Time either slows down or speeds up, he’s not sure, but Johan’s hands are on him in an instant, tugging at his shoulders and his elbow, trying to turn Judai to get a closer look at him - he can already see the blood stained mouth, dilated pupils, face extraordinarily pale - when something collides with him, hard.

He’s flung back a couple feet, prompting the Gem Beasts roar into life, and quite frankly, there’s a lot of unnecessary shouting that Johan doesn’t understand. He thinks for a moment Judai may have accidentally pushed him back, maybe confused in his wounded, bloody-Johan’s-kitchen-with-my-red-spit mind frame, but nothing like that would cause such an uproar with his family.

It’s when Johan bumps into the light switch, effectively throwing a blinding light into a room full of angry spirits and a bleeding Judai, which basically boils down to the angry spirits still being angry and Judai groaning and covering his eyes with a feeble arm.

When Johan’s eyes adjust to the brightness, he feels a sudden plummet in his gut and his head feels a little too light. He can’t be sure it’s her fault, but Johan finds his energy draining away and the knee-jerk trigger that brings up flashes off the searing pain that comes with getting your soul torn from your body.

Her eyes meet Johan’s, and he knows she has both changed infinitely and not at all. They are filled with a deep rooted desire for Judai, but it’s not… not quite crazy, not quite filled with pain and obsession. But the absolute distaste for him and everything he stands for – and he never quite understood what that was - was visible in every part of her posture, he didn’t need to see her eyes for that. Her arms are shiny with crimson and her eyes are – wild, like a predator, and scared, like prey.

Yubel turns away, though, more occupied with wrapping her wings around herself and Judai, clutching him in her arms and trying to do too many things at once, protect Judai and save his life.

She cannot do both.

Despite the screaming of his family, despite the growling of her, Johan reaches out, with faith and a degree of recklessness he learned from the closest and fastest friend he ever made.

“Let me help,” He says, standing still but firm, neither prey nor predator, willing to bridge a gap wider than oceans for Judai’s sake. Anything for Judai. “Yubel. Let me help.”

It’s perhaps that one thing they share in common, that devotion, that saves Judai’s life and the rest of Johan’s kitchenware.

\---

So Johan isn't trained in the field of medicine. He’s a duelist, not a doctor. But North Academy was a fairly odd place to put an academy, in the middle of a giant snow desert of death and frostbite, and it wasn't known for coddling it’s duelists. The icy area was treacherous at best and murderous on average, and Johan has suffered more than his share of cuts and bruises from there.

But even he isn’t quite sure what to do with two bullet holes in the back.

At the very least, the bullets aren’t still in him. Two matching holes show in the front of the jacket, which Johan flung off as soon as he got Judai to sit up right. The shirt gets tossed too, enough for Johan to see bright white scarring and two gaping holes that should’ve been gushing blood a lot more than it is. Johan tries to focus on throwing some antibiotics on and bandaging the wounds up and not on Judai’s pale skin and unfocused, unnaturally yellow-colored gaze.

He leaves him on the sofa in the living room, buried under a mountain of blankets and jackets, whatever Johan could find. The golden eyes are still there, gazing at nothing in a decidedly blank manner.

In the kitchen, he finds that Yubel isn’t looking all that great either, and Johan’s not sure he understands, among many things, why she’s fading in and out of reality like a transparent ghost, but somehow managing to still bleed on his floor at the same time. She’s in the process of leaning on the counter and trying very hard not to fall through it when she pauses to look at him.

She’s glaring at him, though, and Johan can already feel the words she’s about to fling at him.

“Heal him,” She says, “You wanted to help. So help.”

“I can’t do anything more than this,” Johan says, folding his arms because he’s fried as it is, with lack of sleep and worry because best friends dropping in out of nowhere, bleeding and borderline unconscious, tends to leave him in poor moods. “I’ve treated those - bullet holes? - that he has, and wrapped them up. Now I need answers.”

“Want.” She says, and Johan can’t tell if she’s grimacing in pain or in disgust. “You want answers. They bear no impact on Judai’s survival. Only your in-actions will.”

“Fine. I want answers. I’m not petty enough to leverage anything that could potentially hurt Judai to know them, but with you, I can.” Johan crosses from the doorway to the other side of the counter, and his family flickers into view for a moment, a rainbow of support backing him up. “You aren’t supposed to be here. You should be - back there, in that world where we left you.”

“I am one with Judai,” She says, chin raised up but wings out defensively all the same. “I go where he goes. Threatening me will earn you nothing.”

“So the fact that you’re hurt, despite being a spirit, means nothing?” He shakes off one with Judai as best he can. 

“My well being shouldn't be any of your concern. I know you and your beasts want nothing to do with me, and the feeling is mutual.”

Johan tilts his head.

“Then why are you here?”

She looks at him with an expression that seems incredibly smug and humble at the very same time.

“Because I am one with Judai.”

“What do you mean, one with Judai?” Johan says. “What does that mean?”

She looks at him like he might be a bug that crawled up to her table and had the audacity to have a go at the food off her plate. Johan glares back as best he can. It’s not something he’s had as much practice in.

“Our souls have been fused together,” She says, slow and deliberate. “Judai and I are one in body and spirit. Prince and Protector, together forever.”

It sounds a lot like _mine, not yours_ , and Johan knows better than to listen to duel monsters shaped like demon dragons from hell, but something in his heart feels like it’s cracking and the want to know has become a need to know, a need that will make or break everything.

He tells her he needs answers.

She tells him want, not need, and refuses to speak to him for the rest of the night.


End file.
